Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Mine is probably the time me and Shannon caught our Davis Observatory male. It was the last day of our trip and we were heading back to California. We had to get back soon because Shannon's wife was due with their baby but we had to stop at Buzz's first to pick up some snakes we'd left there. We got to Buzz's around 7pm not planning to hunt that night. Buzz wasn't around so we went and had dinner. After dinner it was dark and Buzz still wasn't anywhere to be found. We decided to make one pass up to the Observatory before leaving. We hunted the lower cuts and found nothing. We got to the long cut and went a little ways up and there was an alterna about 7 feet up the cut. Shannon held the light while I climbed up and got it. It was a beautiful speckled adult male. We stayed a little longer seeing as how an alterna was moving and ended up finding a lepidus too. Around midnight we had to leave without the snakes we'd left at Buzz's but happy none the less with our find. Well that's my best alterna story, what's yours?

around probably pissed off at me for being another snake hunter and just a very FEW feet where he turned around ( u turn ) there was a alterna smack alive in the road. Even though this wasn't an alterna he did the same thing going down the hill to study butte and lo and behold....a very good looking suboc right SMACK in the middle of the road. even though I met the man several times and talked to him in the old days...I have no idea if he ever knew this and without spreading gossip ( those that knew him in those days would probably agree ), it seemed maybe spirits of certain beverages might have influence these hasty turn arounds . LOL ! ( just my opinion though and don't really know )......

In the early 90's we had a big group
out in Brewster that included our wives.

The guys set out in diff. vehicles and
our wives in another. Our wives pass
Pete and Ron in the xmas and they seem
to be scrambling around looking for something.
A few yards later the girls see a snake in
the road and my wife's friend Donna was first
out of the car standing over the snake. She couldn't
ID it and Pete and Ron were fast approaching
realizing the girls had located thier snake.

My wife scrambles over to where Donna and the snake
were (just ahead of Pete), YELLS MILKSNAKE!, grabs it,
jumps in the car, and hauls butt. LOL> guess ya had to
be there! We still laugh about that.

Pete's caught plenty of snakes in front of or behind me
so it was nice to have my wife even the score a little.

Joe

PS some of my funniest alterna stories involve Steve Phillips.
LOL...he's such an animated person.

one trip of multiple findings of alterna was with Phillips. All was found on RR and the very last one of the trip was coming back east on a slope ( you all know where this is very close to Lajitas ) when we topped the hill and right in my line of tires was a 18 incher. It was a situation where, #..1 we just didn't expect for one to be crossing, #2..we wasn't ready for one because of fumbleing around with his cam-corder, #3..it was like 3 or 4 am. I swerved and Phillips was out of the vehicle before I could stop of course ( he wore holes in his shoes on this trip because of the latter ) and yelled that we hit it ! I said NO WAY but the snake was doing some mighty weird stuff and went limp. After Phillips did his crying game and after several minutes the dang alterna reared up and bit him on the finger. Nothing was wrong with this snake and we guessed that I had winded him with missing him with tire wind.

The next story is not of finding a snake but of the incident that I have on VHS. Phillips had rented a cam-corder and this was in 87 or 88 when they were still retailing for over a $1,000. His rental was around $500 ( I think ) and or deposit of $500 and this was put on his credit card. He flew up to KC so we could rent a car and that was a HONDA civic with the very slopeing front window. This trip was a Phillips documentry special of the Big Bend region. Well we left for the River Road and just before we got to the Big Hill he decides that he needs to sit on the hood of the car to film and narrate. It was HOT and going up the Big Hill was no problem since ( with cam-corder in hand ) he was pressed against the windshield. But at the very top he decides the hood to hot so he puts a towel on the hood so he could sit on it. RIGHT ! We just topped the hill and about a few hundred feet down I pick up speed even when I applied the brakes and Phillips motions a wave with his hand while filming that I thought he wanted me to speed up. WRONG ! He comes off the hood and I swear it was like the cartoon that we have all seen where the running characture is slapping his back side with his heels of his feet. This was exactly what Phillips was doing. HA, HA ! So we stop and ask him if he was okay and he didn't even break stride on filming and narrating. I think some have viewed copies of this but in the VHS it shows him just still filming coming off the hood and the cam-corder flying around while filming and him still narrating.

Searching from alotta locales, but in my early greenhorn years, I remember 1 night, June 17, 1985, to be exact, when my friend Don Nitcher & I were on vacation & snake hunting in West Texas. We had started driving around Langtry & this was like our 5th night there, we had already caught a nice 14" female dark blairs on the 13th & had seen snakes every night, though some nites only 2-3 snakes. This particular night we had driven 4 miles East, then 4 miles West of Langtry, then would cruise the Langtry Loop road & of course we had been on pandale dirt too. This night was less windy than most, as usually a SE wind is present, the temps felt perfect, 79-82F, no moon, a few other hunters & no snakes all the way till past midnight. Finally around midnight, we met John Hollister up the pandale dirt road, about 1 mile from US 90. We pulled over, as did John & we all piled on top of his car hood & got comfortable leaning back on the windsheild & gazing at the awesome dark desert skies. Of course I asked John at least 3-4 times why everthing seemed so perfect tonite, yet we had saw no snakes & so far this night, no one else had seen a alterna & very few other snakes. He simply said something like that there could be a late movement of snakes, if they decide to move at all, and for me to relax & let the night continue without worries, which made sense to me. After about a half hour, we decided to start driving again, so Hollister headed on North up the dirt, we headed South to 90, then took the loop into Langtry, headed East, just past the visitor center & there is a nice wide orange banded male blairs, stretched over the double yellow lines, slowly crossing here at 12:39am, what a site! On to 90, we headed East & at the highest hill East of Langtry, we find a really bright medium gray 20" day-glow orange male blairs at 1:07am. Heading back West of Langtry, just past the Osman Canyon bridge, we find yet another dark 15" blairs female at 2:15am & as we head to the highest hill West of Langtry, we meet up with Hollister again & he had just picked up a nice 24" blairs as well. Little did we know that this was the night before a storm, as it rained hard the next day in the Langtry area. It was & still remains my best night, number wise, to see 3 alterna in a very short time span........John F.

I left Utah sometime in the evening and drove all night, and all the next day (About 21 hours)to arrive at the bottom of the river road (Windmill) at about 10:00 P.M. of the next night. I had my wife and children with me. I drove the whole way without my wife helping. I was running on sheer adrenaline an my eyes were bigger then saucers. It was in early June and it was already dark. I drove about one mile, and in the middle of the road was a male alterna. The first car I saw was Ricky Green. He lived in Lajitas and he told me he had hunted every night since the middle of April and had not seen one alterna. Upon hearing what I had done he just shook his head and drove away. I got to the Teepee's, turned around and coming up the big hill I found a female in the middle of the road. I saw rick green and stopped and told him what had just happened. He said I was the luckiest S.O.B. he had ever known. I drove down to the river just past the colorado put-ins and on the right side I saw what I thought was a large lepidus. There was a slight drizzle at that time. I drove past the snake and told my wife I did not want to stop and see the lep when alternas were moving. I thought to myself, what if it was a weird morph of Lep as it was very light. I backed up, shined my light down and saw a huge adult light phase female alterna. I stopped Rick Green again and told him of my success. He was not happy at that time. I saw Rick the next year. He told me that he had a gun on his seat that eventful night, and if I had stopped him a forth time to say that I had caught an alterna he would have shot me in my seat. I am sure he was kidding, I hope so anyway. It was a good trip and I think I found 6 river rd alterna on that two week trip. It was along time ago and I am not real sure where the second alterna was caught, but the big hill seems right. I did find three that night for sure though. I thought I was going to see 20 that trip. Just youthful optimism. Years later I now realize Ricky was right, I was a lucky S.O.B. .....Ric Blair

Hey Rick,
Yeah. Rick Green might have shot you if he didn't have such good luck himself!!

Those were the days huh? Great story. Hope all is well with you. Hugh

Mine actually happened this year. I was hunting on a friends 10,000 acre ranch right off of Hwy 277. I had planned on going out early to scout out his ranch but I got off work very late and it was alrady dark by the time I got down there. No one lives on his ranch so I was all alone. Anyway, I went out for a short ways in my truck until I found a small canyon with some nice rock walls and parked it. The night "seemed" perfect, pitch black and a slight breeze. I figured if I stayed in the canyon, all I would have to do to find my way back was to turn around and walk back. Well, I had only walked 20 yards or so and BAM!, first alterna. So of course I'm thinking, "this is it, it's gonna be a good night" I kept walking and walking, on occasion I would see an offshoot from the canyon that looked perfect that I had to check it. The snakes were moving like crazy. I had found several other spps. as well so I couldn't stop. Well after a while, I got to thinking, "Ooops, I wonder where the main canyon went?" Not a good feeling in West Texas. After walking around for about an hour trying to find where I had come from, I was getting a little perturbed. Luckily, I track for a living and I found a single track in one of the bigger canyons. I walked again for several hundred yards before I found another. To make a long story short, the trip back to the truck which should've taken 1.5 hours, took almost 4. It was scary there for a few, but next year I'm carrying a GPS. But hey, I got an alterna out of it.
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Snakes of Hudspeth County, Texas

A few years ago i met my friends brad and troy, for a few days of hunting in az/new mex.(with no plans of going to west tex.),we found a few snakes and had a good time.after brad and troy went home I had a day to kill and was flying out of elpaso the next morning, so decided to drive to alpine and visit friends, have a leisure dinner, and get up early for the flight home.by the time i visited everyone and had dinner it was getting dark so i decided to make a few passes in limpia canyon(maybe i would see a blacktail or lep), then call it a nite. no sooner had i got to limpia, passed the first rest area, then i saw a snake slowly crossing the road. i stopped the car and walked back thinking lep or glossy, but it was a beautiful female alterna, i couldent believe it!!it was the only snake i found that nite, and like i said had not planned on going to west texas!!/jon s.

Inspired by Brian Hubbs' success in field collecting an Alpine alterna
under a rock during daylight hours in 1992, I made several trips to west
Texas early in the season to try my luck. I tried the technique in Val
Verde County, Black Gap and Alpine. On the weekend of 3/26/1994, I
worked the rocks all day Saturday in Val Verde County, finding a few
snakes, the best of which was a coachwhip. That night it rained 0.4".
Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m., I lifed to piece of limestone to find
a 13.5" male light phase blairs. He was slightly opaque. This
represents the first and last alterna I've collected in this manner.
Home Page

That's a tough question for sure... Watching my son get his first ranks highest on my list, but that's another story.

I lived in the Terlingua in the early 80's and hunted every night with Rick Green for a couple of seasons. We rode in our own trucks and talked on CB radios. We'd chastise each other when one of us had a good night and the other didn't. We would follow DEA up and down the river on slow nights (while thought they were following us!). We'd set Good and Plenty candy out in a line trying to get each other only to watch visiting herpers take a few thousand miles off of their tires thinking they'd found the milksnake of milksnakes.

One memorable one happened on the river road, 1984, July, if the ol' brain is working right. Those of you who know Rick from those days will remember his then girlfriend Sue. Sue helped Rick with his saddle making business and was a tough west Texas girl not to be messed with. We were pals and she often rode in my truck when we hunted. I was actually looking for rattlesnakes and they were after alterna. She loved them as much as Rick did. We were coming off of mud flats, west of the big hill, late, when I saw what I thought was a dark alterna's tail go off of the opposite shoulder. I slammed on my brakes, hit my emergency brake and jumped out of the truck while it was skidding down the road. Somehow I did not fall. I never said a word to Sue, and when she looked over she said the door was open and I was gone and in her words "the truck was still flying down the road!!". Well, she was not happy about riding down the road without a driver, and I could not find the damn snake. She was now tromping up the road reading me a whole new set of words I never had heard before about how I was about to die for bailing out on her. Then, I saw the little beauty coiled in a depression in the shoulder gravel as she yelled "What the hell did you do that for?!?!" I reached down, picked it up and said "For this." I quickly handed her what was thankfully a screamer dark river road alterna phase. She immediately forgot all references to my upcoming death and gave me a big hug saying something about "great job" as she walked back to the truck with her new alterna.

Much like Ric Blair wondered if Rick Green would have shot him had he caught a fourth that night, I have often wondered if that night might not have been my last had I not seen the snake laying low in the gravel??

Oh the stories they tell about that guy Rick Green. But I remember some of my own. Like one night on the river road with my best bud Hugh McCrystal. It was late july or early august, early 80's and things had slowed down, not much was moving. I had caught a few alterna that year but Hugh was working at La Kiva and did not get out on the road until late each night, I don't think he really cared about alterna, since he was all wrapped up in lepidus, but he hated the fact that he had not collected an alterna that year. Anyway we were running up and down the river road seeing nearly nothing, talking back and forth on the cb, when suddenly on the right shoulder there was a snake. I slid to a stop, jumped from my truck, and there it was, the most beautiful snake you had ever seen. In to the bag it went.I couldn't wait to tell my bud, Hugh. I fired up the cb, "I got one of those grey snakes with the black and orange," I said and the response was something I don't think I can repeat, some well chosen 4,5 and 6 letter words that were colorful but very flattering. I know he was realy happy for me but he would have rather found it himself. Anyway at some point that night we stopped so he could see my new prize, I wish you could have heard the words he used to describe me when he pulled that ring neck from the bag, a grey snake with an orange belly with black spots.

I'm back. More stories to come, even on Ric Blair.

Oh hell yes do I remember that one. You got me good indeed! I even remember where we stopped our trucks so you could hand that sucker to me and laugh your a%#$s off when you saw my face. South side of the south cut, me going north you going south.

Yeah the stories... dingy Dave could fill a whole forum on his own. Remember following him around! Not to mention "I never miss a snake Bob M!" I miss all of you! Cheers, Hugh

My best alterna story was when I was hunting with my brother, my wife and my best friend in the summer of 1999. We had been working hard walking the cuts north of Sanderson for the past couple of nights and that night started out no differently. A slight cold front brought in cooler weather and there were heavy clouds surrounding the area with the occasional strike of lightning and a cool breeze. I was walking the east side of the cuts at 9 miles north and my freind was walking the west cut. After carefully scanning the lower end of the cuts, I saw a dark phased juvenile male alterna climbing along a crack and a gnarled root down the cut. I just stopped and froze there staring at it in awe. I happily grabbed the beast and showed it off to the rest of my group. About 30 minutes later, I found a light phased animal 16 miles north of Sanderson. Another 30 minutes yeilded yet another light phased male 16 miles north of Sanderson. This was my brothers first time hunting alterna and he still to this day thinks that it is a peice of cake to find them! I have not found one North of Sanderson since that night.

This is my only Alterna story...

I am a student at Murray State in West Kentucky. I lucked out and got the opportunity of a lifetime to do an internship at the Fort Worth Zoo.

Prior to this time I was not ever really fascinated with alterna. We have a bunch of them in our genetics lab at the university. I always thought they were boring. While I was at the zoo I heard stories about looking for alterna in the Big Bend region of Texas. I love to go herping and so I got the opportunity to go with some zoo buddies.

I was with two seasoned alterna hunters and of course was a rookie. They told me all sorts of herp stories on the way down to Val Verde Co. I never knew about how rare it is to see alterna out in the wild.

It was the first day of the trip...a Thursday. As soon as we got there I got excited. It was not an alterna, but a little Cnemidophorus (don't have many of those in KY). I chased it under a rock and never saw it again. We walked the tops of the Loam Alta cake cuts and they were telling me that the last time they went the rookie found an alterna.

We herped for hours. I saw some of those blind snakes and it was cool looking at one of those. Chris Davis, a bird keeper at FWZ found a little lizard running in the middle of the cuts. He caught it and thought it was a Cnemidophorus (turned out to be an Alligator lizard). We left the cuts and drove around staying on 277. We checked out a few other cuts and got reports from a gentleman driving around.

We went back to the cake cuts one more time that night. By then I thought finding an alterna was impossible. I started catching Hemidactylus running around. I was walking back towards the car where the other two were waiting when I saw the beauty...

Crawling up the rock face about 5 feet off of the ground at the very base of the cuts (where no one even looked all night) was a dark alterna phase. apporximately 14". I also lucked out...it fed on frozen/thawed mice right away!

The rest of the trip yielded a Baird's ratsnake.

The best part of the story was when Rick Hudson of FWZ told me that he had herped there for about 20 years and still have never found an alterna. I truly am lucky to find one my first night! I plan on going back in May.
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15 Leopard Gackos 5.10.0
2 Tokay Geckos 1.1.0
1 Graybanded Kingsnake 1.0.0
1 Baird's Rat Snake (Thanks Vadoni!) 1.0.0
coming soon...
Corn Snake, Green Anoles, crested geckos, and Yellow Rat Snakes.

Great stuff...

Tell Rick he has to actually get out and look to find one!! LOL

Then tell him McCrystal sends him a big kiss!

sounds like him...lol
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15 Leopard Gackos 5.10.0
2 Tokay Geckos 1.1.0
1 Graybanded Kingsnake 1.0.0
1 Baird's Rat Snake (Thanks Vadoni!) 1.0.0
coming soon...
Corn Snake, Green Anoles, crested geckos, and Yellow Rat Snakes.

In 96' I was with Buzz hunting the Xmas Mts. I only had two nights to hunt, so of course I was chomping at the bit to hit the road before dusk the first night. Buzz, in his usual casual way, was piddling around the house until almost dusk. When we finally got to the area later that night we didn't get two passes in before Buzz wanted to stop and talk to some other hunters. I was about lose it. I finally started walking down the shoulder of the road to at least make some kind of effort. I walked up along a high spot and looked back down to the road and there was what looked like a solid black snake. Damn coachwhip. As I started to walk down to get a closer look at it, I thought I could see some red bands. What the f*#$! It was a female alterna with thin blood red cuts on dark charcoal with black triple alternates (and one eye). I was back to the cluster within 5 minutes with an alterna in hand! With that everyone jumped in their cars and started doing what we should have been doing!

RUSS

all the one eyed snakes LOL...Ric Blair

N/P.

I guess my best alterna story happened in 1983.I was living in Ozona Tx.,just North of Juno. Durimg the full moon phase in june I took my two kids fishing at Bakers crossing for the lack of anything else to do. Fishing realy is not my cup of tea but my son loved it. About sundown we left Bakers and headed north hauling a^%#& as usual since it wasn't dark yet and it was a full moon night we obviously were not going to see anything. Well the light phase blairs lying in the middle of my lane has not read any of the literature on road crusing. Of course I hite the brakes at 65 or 70 and made my tires sqare on one side,both kids and I ran back to where we had seen the uninformed snake. Now you would think an adult alterna in the daylight would be easy to find even if it had gotten of the road. Not so, we looked under every bush and rock and thrashed the grass. After throwing a fit that even embarassed my kids, we headed north again. Of coarse after seeing one alterna, even though it is a full moon night you can't just go home so we made pass afer pass with my daghter telling me before each one that we would see another one. Knowing she was wrong I told myself each pass would be the last. About 10:30 I headed home and my daugter said we would see another. As I explained to her why she was wrong, at the same time we both yelled alterna. About 11 miles north of where the trash cans used to be, now just a wide spot were we turn around was a juvi male that didn't get off the road. Lucky for you, you only have to hear this story once, my daughter reminds me of it all the time.